


once more to see you

by mitzski



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Smut, Tension, it's sad...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:48:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25177171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitzski/pseuds/mitzski
Summary: Liam’s time with Theo is a flash of memories.
Relationships: Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	once more to see you

**Author's Note:**

> title is a mitski song! hope you enjoy :)

Liam’s time with Theo is a flash of memories. It’s the golden glow of afternoon splaying across Theo’s face as he drives Liam around in his truck. It’s whispers in the dark of Liam’s room, fingers gliding overheated skin, kisses on necks that Liam thought were promises. He can still feel the tight grip of Theo’s fingers on his hips even though the bruises faded in seconds; Liam had thought his grip meant he would hold on to him as tightly as he was holding on to Theo. Liam was wrong.

Liam’s time with Theo was a secret. It happened behind closed doors, and Theo begged him to keep it that way with a fear in his eyes that Liam never wanted to see again. He told himself that Theo filled the cracks that their secret relationship created with his gaze that followed Liam in every room, with his soft kisses in Liam’s kitchen every morning before his parents woke up, with his unyielding vulnerability in the dark of night. Liam thought that knowing all of Theo’s secrets would anchor them together. Liam was wrong.

Liam’s time with Theo was filled with a desperate longing for more. All Liam wanted was to interlace their fingers while his friends laughed around them and wear Theo’s soft hoodies everywhere he went and kiss him after he won (and lost) his lacrosse games. Instead he got soft, knowing looks across rooms, a brush of hands under tables, wild kisses when they were finally alone. It almost felt like enough. Sometimes it felt like he didn’t care about the dangers still lurking in every corner of Beacon Hills as long as Theo’s gaze kept straying back to him. Liam thought he wouldn’t lose that gaze so soon. Liam was wrong. 

\--

The night he left was like any other night. The pack had spent an excruciatingly long time going over Monroe’s whereabouts and plans to find her, and Liam had started feeling the now-unfamiliar irritation pushing at his skin, making his comments a little more pointed, his low voice a little more subhuman. Theo noticed (because Theo _always_ noticed), and although he had little authority in the pack, as Stiles had helpfully reminded, he softly urged Scott to wrap it up for the night. At the same time, he had pushed his hand, resting inches from Liam’s all night, across the McCalls’ table so that their fingers were pressed together. He felt the warmth like burning in Theo’s hand against his, spreading up his arm and lessening the buzz in his head. His eyes snapped up to Theo’s face, taking in his clenched jaw and furrowed brow as Scott and Stiles bickered back and forth about ending the meeting even as the others had started getting their stuff together. Lost in the line his jaw made down to his throat, Liam almost startled as Theo’s eyes finally met his, the green noticeably softening as he looked at the beta. Theo didn’t give him a smile, or even a smirk; he just stared right back at Liam, his mouth a thin line. Liam was afraid he would melt under Theo’s unfamiliarly intense gaze, but before he got the chance, Scott snapped his mind back to the present as he called the meeting to a close. 

Everyone was soon shuffling out of the house, unconsciously shaking out tensed shoulders and blinking drowsy eyes. Liam felt his irritated exhaustion melt into a different animal underneath his skin as he wordlessly fell into step next to Theo on their way to his truck. The back of Liam’s hand instinctively found Theo’s, brushing against the other continuously, and Liam was suddenly buzzing with an amalgamation of longing and desperation and desire. He knew it must have been showing in every possible way—from his scent to his flushed cheeks—as Theo glanced at him. In contrast, Theo was perfectly unreadable with his inscrutable gaze and neutral scent. But as they parted to get in the truck, he saw Theo’s hand briefly flex, illuminated by headlights as he unlocked the truck. 

Maybe it was that silent, physical confirmation—the most Theo would ever show—that their simple touches sent the same shock down Theo’s spine as they did Liam’s that caused him to slip past the line that Theo had tacitly drawn in the sand when they had started doing whatever it was they were doing. Maybe it was the way Theo had simply known to be gentle that night when they got home, his kisses tender as they finally passed the threshold of Liam’s room and his slender fingers insistent yet soft as they moved from his jaw to his neck to his chest. Maybe it was the way his eyes had never seemed to leave Liam’s after their staredown in the McCall house even as they drove home. Whatever it was, Liam knows now that he misinterpreted it. 

As Theo kissed a path down Liam’s body, following the flush that started at his cheeks and ended below his navel, a smile in his eyes the whole way down, Liam couldn’t help but say it. 

“I love you,” he whispered. His hand was clenched in Theo’s hair, his gaze unwavering on the boy on top of him, his heart a steady beat despite Theo’s ministrations. 

Theo’s gaze immediately skittered away from his for the first time in what felt like hours. For a second, Liam thought Theo would stop, his heart surprisingly ratcheting up after Liam’s words. But it was a seemingly quick recovery as Theo’s eyes found their focus, and he finally took him into his mouth, a moan punching out of Liam. Theo’s averted gaze and quick heartbeat prickled at Liam’s consciousness for a couple seconds before Theo was speeding up, taking him down his throat, and Liam just couldn't _think_ anymore. He finished embarrassingly quickly, but before he could feel the shame creep up his spine, Theo surged up to kiss him with the taste of Liam still on his tongue. It knocked the breath out of Liam, their teeth almost clacking, Theo’s fingers grappling his face. It was more desperate than any of their other kisses that night; Theo kissed him with a ferocity that Liam would call abandon if he didn’t know just how in control Theo always was. It seemed to start as soon as it stopped as Theo pulled back, giving him that same intense look that he had in the McCall house. 

“Gotta go,” Theo finally whispered to him, holding Liam’s gaze for a moment longer before he blinked and his eyes skittered away.

He carefully extracted himself from Liam’s embrace, moving so quickly that Liam’s post-coital brain could only force him to move as Theo started for his bedroom door. He pushed himself up from his bed, thoughts still moving at a glacial pace despite the panic slowly seeping into his chest.

“Where are you going?” Liam managed to stutter out, fingers twisting tighter into the already disheveled sheets beneath him. His bare chest was moving up and down with his still labored breaths, sheets barely covering his lower half.

Theo stopped minutely at the door of his room, turning his head back to look at the other boy. He finally let his eyes settle on Liam’s, almost glowing green in the dark room, and Liam waited with a bated breath for Theo to dispel the dread twisting in Liam’s stomach. But Theo’s lips just quirked in an attempted smile before he whispered, “Don’t worry.” 

His face was once again inscrutable, although later Liam will swear he saw a hint of sadness or regret or _something_ in Theo’s intense green eyes. 

He was out the door before Liam could protest, still frozen to the bed, his truck starting a minute later and backing out of Liam’s driveway. The sound of the truck gliding over pavement seemed to echo in the cold silence of Liam’s room long after Theo had driven away. 

Liam didn’t know that Theo wouldn’t be coming back any time soon as he finally collapsed back onto his bed, Theo’s phantom touch still imprinted on his skin. He wouldn’t know that till days later when he finally caves in and calls Theo after not seeing him again. The phone will ring until he’s met with a tinny automatic voice telling him that the line had been disconnected. 

He’ll stare numbly down at his phone, his sheets still reeking of Theo, and call his number again and again until Mason finally finds him like that and forces him out of his fugue. That’s when he’ll tell Mason everything, Theo no longer there to beg him not to; the confession doesn’t feel as liberating as he imagined it would, but Mason holds him as he shudders through an explanation. 

For months afterward, Liam will fluctuate between blinding anger and stifling sadness, Theo’s departure constantly replaying in his mind. He will be adamant to insist that the mood swings are not just because of Theo, but even Mason can feel the stutter of his heart as he says it, his eyes softening and his mouth twisting. 

Even as Liam thinks of a million things he could’ve done differently that night to make Theo stay, he never once thinks to take back the words that he knows were the reason Theo left. _I love you,_ Liam thinks, even though it made Theo take off in his truck in the middle of the night. _I love you,_ Liam thinks, even though it left him to lay in a suddenly cold bedroom with the taste of Theo still in his mouth. _I love you,_ Liam thinks, even though it changed everything.

All Liam can hope for now is that Theo’s heart is still beating somewhere out there ( _even though,_ as Theo had told him under the cover of darkness, _every beat is a reminder that he’s alive while his sister isn’t)._ It won’t ever be enough, but, for Liam, nothing was ever enough with Theo. 


End file.
